PARTINGS.
As we crossed the suspension bridge for the last time on our way from
Pest on the morning of our departure, the sun had risen, but the
shadows still lingered beneath the white colonnades and archways that
flank the Palace Gardens. On the Danube sleepy little fishing boats
were floating with sails still furled, but on the quays, men were busy
unloading merchandise from the larger boats that lay alongside.
We had bidden a sorrowing adieu to our carriage the previous evening,
and as we looked at it for the last time, and the remembrance of our
pleasant picnics and roadside bivouacs came floating back upon the
mind, we almost wept over it, for it was akin to parting with an old
and valued friend.
Our last journey had tried its enfeebled constitution sorely, and
looking at it we felt its work was done. It would no longer rumble
along the road to the merry jingle of horses’ bells. The patches
which András had sewn over the rents in its poor old hood, no longer
excluded the rain; it was leaky in every pore, and the canvas in some
places hanging to it in ragged filaments gave to the whole, a woebegone
appearance indeed.
We were once more on our way to Fűred, there to await the departure of
the Austrian Lloyd’s Steamer on the Save, and had scarcely taken our
seats when we heard a plaintive voice saying in rather questionable
German and still more questionable grammar,
“Would any lady or gentleman be so good as to exchange their seats and
allow me to sit in this carriage? I am _so_ afraid to travel near
the engine.”
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Looking out of the window, I recognise the typical Englishwoman at
last. There she is, arrayed in the typical brown ulster, large straw
hat of the mushroom species, and green gauze veil. Nothing wanting to
render the type complete.
“All right!” replied the manly voice of a Magyar seated in the farthest
corner, evidently glad of an opportunity of befriending an unprotected
female; “take my seat, I’ll go into the next carriage.”
She too was on her way to Fűred, having just arrived from Vienna, and
we soon ascertained that she was an “unappropriated blessing,” roaming
about the “wide wide world” as “unappropriated blessings” sometimes
will; whilst a maid, who accompanied her in her wanderings, was seated
in the next carriage with András.
The landing-place at Fűred on this occasion of our visit presented a
most animated scene, and was thronged with people in gay attire. We
had secured rooms some weeks previously in the same hotel, or rather
boarding-house, for strictly speaking there are no hotels here; but
for which it is not likely we should have found accommodation, for the
little place is evidently as full as it can cram.
On the landing, amongst the loiterers who were either there to meet
their friends or watch the new arrivals, we recognised the imposing
form of András’s “better half,” who had come to greet her lord and
master. He did not, however, appear to be so glad to meet his Katicza
as husband should; on the contrary the previous evening he had
presented himself with a doleful countenance, and entreated us to take
him with us to Ángolország.
“How could he leave his _édes kedves_ (sweet, beloved) master
and mistress?” the warm-hearted little man in his sorrow at parting
with us adding another adjective to his usual form of address--“He
would be our butler, our cook, our groom,” in short our everything.
“He would be scarcely any expense to his _édes kedves uram_
and _asszonyom_,” he only wanted black bread, bacon and
kurkurnty soup; and as to clothes!--he had plenty of strong, homespun
_gatyák_, etc., etc., a pair of _czimák_ (top-boots) once
a year was all he would need; and as he completed the category, we
could not help smiling inwardly at the thought of the sensation
his appearance would create amongst the English natives with his
embroidered petticoats and feather-adorned cap, and with a sore heart
we told the little man he must return to his Hungarian master and to
the bosom of his family.
Greatly to our surprise and delight we found here the friends with whom
we had stayed in the north of Hungary, and with whom in the evening
we strolled down to the lake. To the right was the bold promontory of
Tihany sloping its rugged cliffs into the bosom of the lake and bearing
on its summit the Benedictine Monastery founded by King Andreas I. in
1055, one of the very earliest Christian institutions established in
this country.
These Benedictines are said to have been the chief agents in the
conversion to Christianity of the heathen hordes who fixed their
abode on the Alfőld in the 9th century. The breeze blowing from the
south-west wafts over the still, blue waters the distant and plaintive
sound of the monastery bell, as it tolls the _Ave Maria_, calling
up within us a feeling of deep reverence for the descendants of the
first preachers of the cross in this once heathen land. There are some,
however, who ascribe the first germ of Christianity in this land to
the Eastern Church and the Byzantine Greeks, many of whom it is well
known were in Hungary previous to the adoption by the Magyars of the
new religion. But whether the glory of Hungary’s original conversion to
Christianity is due to the Benedictines or not, they were at any rate
the principal means of keeping alive and spreading that faith which
in various modifications is now held by all the nationalities of this
vast country. It was, moreover, to the teaching of this order that the
Hungarians are indebted for the first lessons in both architecture and
agriculture, for, whilst instilling into their minds the doctrines of
Christianity, they taught them the dignity and importance of labour,
and just as we ourselves are indebted to the Benedictines for many of
our beautiful churches, and the majority of our abbeys, the Hungarians
owe to these early Christian monks the greatest architectural
achievements their country possesses.
As we saunter along the margin of the lake the weird and banshee
strains of a gipsy band reach us, which the echoes give back in
muffled harmony. On calm and peaceful nights like the present, the
air in this vicinity is said to resound with the enchanting songs of
fairies who live in the rocky fastnesses of Tihany. How delightful to
find ourselves in a land where fairies still exist! The lake also is
believed to be the abode of Naiads; whilst that of Neusiedler, near
Presburg, is said to contain within its watery depths whole palaces
of gold and precious stones. This being a happy country where these
fascinating little people abound, it might reasonably have been
expected, since the gipsies had favoured us with a serenade, that they
also would have turned out to bid us welcome. Possibly they did so, but
our eyes, blinded by the hard, stern civilisation of the West, were
not at any rate permitted to see nor our ears hear them; or we may,
perhaps, have sought at too early an hour for those dissipated spirits.
There is more than one superstition believed in concerning this lake,
nor is it to be wondered at. There are phenomena, too, peculiar to
it which give it a very eery character, one of them being that it is
occasionally violently agitated without any apparent cause, and the
other that in the winter the ice which covers it sometimes bursts with
a loud report.
These phenomena are the more remarkable from the fact of its being so
shallow, spreading itself out as it does over no less an area than four
hundred square miles.
The water-drinkers were up betimes, and from earliest dawn there was
such a tramping of feet in the corridor outside the door, that sleep
any longer was out of the question. I wonder what particular qualities
the waters are supposed to possess at that unearthly hour? Opening the
window, I let in the sweet morning air. The lake is sleeping calmly
below, the long line of distant shore scarcely perceptible, whilst
horizon and sky are blended into one. In the marshes beyond the lake,
the white vapours which hovered over them in the darkness, now rising,
begin to take shape, and, separating into fleecy cones, wear the
appearance of a procession of phantoms, or attendant spirits of Night,
as, scarcely touching the surface of the earth, they glide away to that
mysterious region where they hide themselves till evening comes again.
In spite of the earliness of the hour, a small, flat-bottomed boat
comes skimming along close to the shore, filled with fishing-nets,
baskets, and men, muffled up in sheepskins, their heads covered with
woollen caps with long flaps to them.
A little later, and the priest is seen taking his matutinal walk. He
exchanges salutations with the doctor of the bathing establishment,
who stands in the portico beneath. And now the abbey bell with muffled
beat again comes floating over the still air, as it summons the worthy
monks to matins! How full of romance and sentiment is their cloistered
dwelling, and of beauty its surroundings!
But the sun is up, and, looking like part of the morning, comes the
chambermaid. Following the pretty custom of the country, she stoops
and kisses my hand, and then presents a small tray on which is placed
“white coffee,” the milk in some way or other being whipped to a froth.
As I sit by the open window it is amusing to watch the people pass.
All little Fűred is astir by this time, and an important-looking
personage comes stalking along, followed by a dog. His figure, pompous
and comfortable, is enveloped in a long cloak lined with some beautiful
fur resembling sable, which sways backwards and forwards, with the
regularity of a pendulum. He is evidently a person of distinction, the
_polgár mester_ (mayor) probably or _biró_ of Dorf-Fűred, a
village not far distant. Coming from an opposite direction is another,
but somewhat less pompous individual, also accompanied by his own
particular quadruped. They meet and exchange salutations in the most
elaborate and approved method of the Hungarian period; they begin
talking confidently, on municipal matters probably, or more likely
still the condition of the dykes, a much vexed question at the present
time, and a source of never-ending dispute and clamour amongst the
various municipalities of the kingdom.
Presently, after a quarter of an hour has elapsed, the colloquy
apparently draws to a close; they bestow upon each other a parting
benediction, at which the dogs--without so much as raising their
heads--open their eyes drowsily and then close them again. They know
by experience there are many last words to be said before the real
farewell is taken, and they are perfectly right. The disputants
separate, and walk in contrary directions, but only to turn back
and resume the argument for awhile, and then repeat the ceremony of
leave-taking. The whole process has been gone through many times, when
there comes at length a peculiar flourish of the walking stick, and a
wave of the hand indicative of the conclusion of the whole matter, upon
which the dogs jump up in an instant, and follow the heels of their
respective masters.
Another lovely day, of which we make the most--for the summer heats
are passing and the rains of autumn will soon be here--tempts us to
make an excursion to the monastery of _Sacer Mons Pannoniæ_, the
chief monastic institution of the country, dedicated to St. Martin, and
erected, so it is said, on the precise spot on which the dwelling of
the parents of St. Martin stood.
There would, however, appear to have been some slight confusion in the
minds of historians concerning the birth-place of this charitable and
amiable saint, a manuscript in the library of the monastery itself
declaring him to have been born in a town at the _foot_ of the
hill; whereas his biographer and disciple Sulpicius Severus contends
that he was born in a district more remote, namely, at a place called
in the present day Steinamanger.
Whatever place may have had the honour of giving him birth, here at
any rate he dwelt in manhood, and although born of heathen parents
and having entered the Roman army, he became a soldier of the cross,
and fighting against Arianism, which was rife in Pannonia in the 4th
century, became in the reign of Constantine the Great the light of the
Western Church.
The monastery is situated on the spur of a mountain which forms one of
the chain enclosing the Hungarian plains to the west, and beneath which
lie the forests of Bakony, of unenviable notoriety as the hiding place
of Hungarian brigands.
Hither come swarms of pilgrims weak in the knees and otherwise shaky
in the lower extremities, hobbling up the steep hill-side, to sit
and shiver in a marble chair contained in a crypt beneath the abbey,
and in which the Saint is said to have sat during mass. To recline
in this chair with a minimum of clothing is said to be a cure for
rheumatism--probably acting on the homœopathic principle “Like cures
like;” a remedy that even rivals the baths of Fűred, and moreover
possesses the additional advantage of being gratuitous.
The present monastery is the third which has been erected on this site,
the first having been destroyed by the Pagans, the secret warfare that
had been going on between Christianity and Paganism during the reign of
King András I., having come to an open rebellion in that of King Béla.
The second was demolished by the Turks; whilst the one now standing is
interesting as having been built by the Abbot Urias who made himself so
conspicuous in the “Holy War.”
In addition to the statue of the patron saint, who as usual is
represented in the act of giving his mantle to the beggar, the church
contains two others of Hungary’s mediæval kings, both of whom were
canonised by the Pope, viz., St. Stephen, and St. Ladislaus.
Our last day at Fűred has also come, and, like all things pleasant, far
too speedily. We have bid a sorrowful adieu to our honest little guide,
who with his belongings has gone back to his master, taking with him a
substantial token of our appreciation of his services, and we are only
waiting the steamer’s signal to cross the lake on our way to Croatia
ere we turn our backs upon the classic land of Attila and Árpád and
bend our steps towards the region of the setting sun.
The service at the hotel was charged for on the bill, and I
need scarcely say paid for also; but who could resist giving a
_douceur_ to the bright-eyed chambermaid who kissed our hands
when she brought our white coffee every morning, and who happens to
be brushing away an imaginary cobweb just outside our bedroom door
as we make our exit, and looking up so sweetly, wishes us a pleasant
journey;--or the civil waiter who happens to be in the middle of the
stairs and who wishes us a speedy return;--or the porters who pant so
exceedingly, as they carry our luggage down to the steamer and stand
mopping their faces with their large full white sleeves;--or the boots,
who helps to stow it away;--or the shoes, or in short anybody, and
everybody--who, I ask, could resist the bestowal of a few kreuzers
upon these civil people as they shower _lebewohls_ and _auf
wiedersehens_ upon us as we depart? We at any rate are not of those
strong-minded children of men.
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